Visionworks slated to open Friday at IBC Centre

If hindsight is 20/20, local vision group HVHC Inc. hopes it works the other way around, too, as it envisions a new future as the first tenant in the IBC Centre since AT&T left in 2008.

Friday morning, the company is opening its latest Visionworks retail outlet in the ground floor of its new corporate headquarters as part of a two-pronged economic infusion into downtown. Just before Christmas, the company moved about 350 corporate jobs into the tower at 175 E. Houston St., and is looking to expand to 400 by June.

The Visionworks will offer full optometry services with the capability to craft most types of lenses, and make glasses for people in about an hour. The practice of Dr. Delesié Johnson will operate independently across the lobby from Visionworks; she is leasing the space from HVHC.

An analysis determined there was a demand for an eyecare center in downtown San Antonio, HVHC President and CEO David Holmberg said. And while Holmberg admits the company is taking a bit of a risk in opening the store in the center city, he said, it’s also about HVHC’s responsibility as one of downtown’s new corporate citizens.

“The way we look at it is that we are making an investment in the community,” Holmberg said.

“We found that the area was very much under served. We think that a portion of the people who will utilize the service are people who work downtown, and people in the general area.”

Dr. Johnson is moving from her practice from the Visionworks at HVHC’s former headquarters on West Avenue (now closed) to HVHC’s headquarters. She leases the space from Visionworks and HVHC. She said some of her patients are following her downtown, and that she looks forward to serving the downtown S.A. workforce.

“I am looking forward to serving the community down here,” Dr. Johnson said. “I am excited for the opportunity to perform eye exams for a different sector of the city.”

The Visionworks and Dr. Johnson’s practice combine to occupy 4,000-square-feet of space in the ground level of the IBC Center. Visionworks’s hours of operation will be 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday.

In September, to help lure HVHC to its new corporate digs, the city chipped in with an incentives package worth $2.9 million over 10 years, which includes parking subsidies and a job creation and retention grant with $1 million to be distributed over the next two years.

Visionworks is the retail arm of HVHC with 500 locations in more than 40 states nationwide. Davis Vision, HVHC’s vision care insurance business, also moved into the building. Viva International Group, HVHC’s designer and manufacturer of frames, , remains based out of the northeast.

HVHC is occupying the first floor, as well as floors 5-9.

The building’s next big tenant is Argo Group US, a division of Bermuda-based specialty insurance underwriter Argo Group International Holdings Ltd. The timetable for that move-in is April or May. The company is set to move into floors 10-13, and will bring about 250 employees to start, according to Larry Mendez, senior vice president of Transwestern, the commercial real estate firm handling the deals.

As the Express-News reported last week, Biglari Holdings Inc., parent company of the Steak ‘n Shake chain, has vacated the building. When it first moved in, Biglari had been subletting the 13th floor from AT&T. On July 1, AT&T’s lease ended, paving the way for the building’s first tenants since shortly after the company announced it was moving its corporate headquarters to Dallas.

Together, HVHC and Argo are anticipated to occupy about 190,000 of the building’s nearly 280,000 square feet. Mendez said other lease agreements are in the works.